Chess Knight

Went through this stuff a while ago, but these two BattlARTS matches I liked a lot: -Ishikawa/Sho Funaki v Ikeda/Usuda 1/13 -TAKA v Minoru Tanaka 10/30 (30 minute draw, IIRC) I honestly can't remember anything too specific as I probably watched them 2010, but I definitely thought they were really good. TAKA comes off the top rope in the draw....yep...

Maybe I misread it, but it sounded like they tried to play a "people were huge on the story itself" card. The matches were well received, but I haven't seen any ciritcal acclaim for the actual story. Might be because I thought it was dogshit and didn't want to acknowledge it existed. Jericho's return's been really disappointing to me. I wasn't ever on his "he's the best in the world!!!" train, but I like the guy and can say I enjoyed most of his career a fair bit. This year...bleh. I sort of had hopes for him because he looked good in the Rumble, and then the Mania match with Punk I liked too. After that I just didn't want to see him anymore. Hated his promos, and his matches did nothing for me. Had some shitty arse ones with guys like Kofi. I know it's KOFI, but a Jack Swagger or a Primo has had passable/good matches with him. Didn't get behind the Street Fight with Punk at all. Felt like 45 minutes of dragging and a fire extinguisher.

"The feud was well put together and received critical acclaim from fans and critics alike." .....like WHO?

This stip should be used WAY more often than it is (which is pretty much never)

Slip off the ropes thing is kind of cool to me. Sasuke is just this indy bush league dude who New Japan Junior King Liger laughs and claps at when he fucks up, and Sasuke takes Liger's underestimantion of him and pulls out a win at that moment.

Jake talks about the Honky Tonk thing on his DVD. They had Jake chasing Honky Tonk around an invisible-to-auidence part of the Snake Pit where Honky changed his real guitar for a shitty ass gimmick one. Problem was, he actually started with the gimmick one and the real one was the one he grabbed to hit Jake with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kFP8uSflEQ 0:25 Honky enters w/ fake guitar (which is supposed to be the real one) 2:26 Honky is chased off by Snake, goes around the back. 2:35 Honky emerges from other side where he grabs real guitar (that was supposed to be the fake one) 2:40 Ouch. It apparently legit injured Roberts neck, yeah. EDIT- Not 100% sure how much of this is true, but I'm sure that's what I remember Snake saying.

Wait, wasn't the story that she bought Triple H large photos of all the Mr. Olympia winners for his birthday? Or maybe that's another birthday story and she also bought him those wrestling photos. Not sure if I got the birthday part right, but Steph definitely bought Hunter a bunch of wrestler frames. It was an extra on the McMahon DVD, I think (because of the 'we hang the Vince photo up when he comes over'). -------------- Regarding Brock, WWE are amazing at taking a guy who has potential, or is in a potentially great storyline, and dragging him to the ground to where I don't give a shit anymore.

They can't hold my attention for 90 minutes, screw 3 hours. This would be really rough if I actually had to sit through it.

Trip is an 80s fan, but it doesn't exactly mean he has to be good at running storys like that. In 2003 he was just a lousy verison of Flair, holding the Title for a long period of time and having people unsuccessfully challenge him for it. Even though it was a shitty verison of an homage, it was still an homage. Pretty obvious that was also just his way of being a 'Horseman' what with Evolution. He might not have run that shit very well, but it doesn't mean the whole "Hunter is an 80s mark" is a work. Matt Striker brings up older wrestling whenever he can but he's not exactly doing anything resembling someone who isn't a 2000s wrestler with minimal experience. Sort-of-related note; Steph bought photos of a ton of 80s wrestler for Hunter's birthday one year, and apparently frames of all the WWF Champions there'd been. They make sure to put the photo of Vince McMahon with the belt up in a noticceable position whenever Vince comes over.

Last two MLW shows were "Reload Tour" on January 9th and 10th. Day 1 is mostly meh, but the main event is a good Low Ki v Homicide. Aftermatch has Gary Hart and some....stuff, but the match is legitimately good and worth watching. Day 2 was pretty solid with a small handful of worthwhile matches. But as far as the yearbook goes, might only want to include Funk v Corino, and just MAYYYYYY wantto look at Ki v Chad Collyer.

Why did Buddy Landel do the whole "Nature Boy" thing? Was that a Rogers thing or Flair thing?

CW being an 'Anderson' isn't exactly something I'm against (was it even his idea?), but he looked more like he was copying Arn Anderson. Calling himself 'the Enforcer', using the spinebuster, the throat-slash, having similar way of eating punches....yeah. I'd rather he be an Anderson family member who wasn't THAT inspried by someone else to the point of mimic.

Imagine you are C.W. Anderson and you look like that. What other gimmick are you going to get that won't result in you being a jobber, or a masked guy with a very short shelf life? BLATANTLY copying Arn Anderson (or any other wrestler) isn't something I would have done. It's nice that he's a living tribute or something and obviously likes Arn a lot, but I don't see any reason to basically try to be him. Almost screams to me, 'I suck, I'll be THIS guy instead.' I've got limited vision on CW so I'm not trying to say he "sucks," but if I want to watch someone do "Arn Anderson," I'll watch Arn himself before a meh imitaion.

CW Anderson, at least in MLW, has been one of my least favourite wrestlers ever. He stole the 'throat-slash' hand sign as well and Joey Styles talked how CW and Simon Diamond reminded him big time of Anderson and Blanchard. Ugh. Did he really expect to amount to anything doing that?

Benoit v Sting from the September 20 Nitro is really good. Benoit v Mike Enos from Souled Out is worth a look too. Rey has a chunk "v big man" matches that, based on hearsay, are terrific short matches. v Nash, Norton, Bigelow....they're on youtube for a watch.

Some 2003 MLW to maybe look at. ------------------------------------ Revolutions 5/9/03 OK show. Went way too long, though. -Punk v Raven is pretty good. IDK just HOW far into their feud you want to go, but this didn't look essential. -Parka/Sabu re-match is good. Probably needed more hate, but it was enjoyable and not too long. -I do not remember Funk/Corino at all. If Will watched it for his Funk set he'll know whether or not it needs to be on there, I guess. ------------------------------ Hybrid Hell 6/20/03 OK show again, probably nothing to actually put on the yearbook. Maybe the main event. -Sabu v Parka III looks to be happening before Parka takes off his mask and reveals he's Mikey Whipwreck in his entrance. Brings the Sinister Minister with him and he and Sabu have a niceish match. 'Niceish' as in 'good', not 'niceish' as in 'they don't seem to hate each other's fucking guts'. THEY DO. -Another inessential Punk/Raven, unless someone thinks everything about their feud should be on the set. -Corino v Funk barbed wire match is the main event. Pretty brutal stuff. Joey Styles flips out at this and that and the crowd really want Corino to be stabbed in the face or something. Post match is the Extreme Horsemen getting the better of Funk and Steve Williams until the Sandman hits the ring. ---------------------------------- Rise of the Renegades 7/26/03 Some pretty good stuff here, Funk/Abby being on the set might be cool. -Sabu and Mikey have another match. Mikey goes really heel and Fonzie shows up for the first time after La Parka chucked stuff on him. The Minister doing a Fonzie impression was AMAZING. Cool match, might be better than the first one. -CM Punk/Michaels Shane v Raven/Norman Smiley. I enjoyed this probably more than I should have. There's 'feud' stuff from previous shows, but this could be watched without any of that and be enjoyed the same. Probably my favourite non-main event or La Parka (or Super Crazy v Red) MLW match so far. -Funk/Abby was pretty disgusting for some of it. Once Funk got the fork he REALLY looked to be digging into Abby's head. Funk was a great old man face (while also being a psycho). Yeah, this is cool (and disgusting). -------------------------------------- Summer Apocalypse 8/22/03 Really, there's some 'not bad' stuff, but by the time it got to the main event I didn't care. Funk/Lawler is a Funk/Lawler match and Punk/Raven have a 'Straightedge Rules Match' or something. Nothing else that's probably as good or as important or as well known as the worst stuff that'll make this set. Haven't watched War Games yet.

Been watching MLW shows. Nothing on thre is great, but there's some funnish and good sort of stuff: Genesis 6/16/02: -Jerry Lynn v La Parka is a pretty fun match. Goes maybe ten minutes. -Steve Corino v Shane Douglas is a pretty recurring thing through the night. Corino cuts this really-bad-into-good promo in a bathroom or something where he says he needs to beat Douglas before retiring or something. His pre-match promo was totally weird. He says "THESE PEOPLE HERE ARE 'SMART'; THEY READ THE SHEETS: YOU'RE HERE TO PUT OVER TONIGHT ARENT'CHA?" Their match is OK, too. -The whole night is basically an MLW Championship tournament, and the other semis become Taiyo Kea v Vampiro. Which was fucking bad. But THAT ends in a time limit draw, so instead of going X more minutes, finalist Shane Douglas pops out and wins the title in a three way in about 50 seconds. Shane then cuts a promo after the match where he says "fuck" more than any other promo ever. The Scarface of wrestling promos. Douglas plays off of his 94 promo (throws the belt down and talks about some greats), and talks about not giving a (FUCKING) shit about the Title he just won, but John Finnegan says if he doesn't defend it he will be banned from wrestling in Pennsylvania. Ironically this was Douglas' only MLW show ever. If there's any interest including this on the set, I'd recommend using maybe the last minute of the Vampiro/Kea, and then everything else after that. Takes up like eight minutes altogether, me thinks. ----------- Reload 9/26/02: This is my favourite show so far, and I just finished Summer Apocalypse (August 03). Really fun event: -Opener is a fun Super Crazy v Fuergo Guerrero. Red looked good, Crazy looked good (and apparently cursed in Spanish); overall this would have made a really cool WCW Thunder cruiser match. -La Parka v Shocker is about as fun and WCW-Thunder-Cruiser as Crazy/Fuergo. Except it has LA PARKA (!!!) -Funk v Candido I watched a while ago (so I skipped it on the show), but I remember it being good. Might have gone too long and I'm not really a Candido advocate, but it was good. Sunny looked kind of chunky. -Main event is crowning a new Champ since Douglas went wherever. It's Lynn v Kojima. Didn't really dig it that much, but IDK how much you're going have the room for on the set and which companies you think are important enough to have the Title changes of on. Could only show the finish of this if nothing else. ----------- King of Kings 12/26/02 I don't remember much about this show- likely because it isn't great and it went too long. STILL, couple of good things: -Sabu v La Parka was pretty insane. I'm surprised Sabu looked this good. Parka bled like a total motherfucker after Sabu grates his head with a pair of scissors. Pretty ridiculous match. Sometime after the match Fonzie drops water on Parka in appreciation, but when talking about a re-match in a promo outside of the arena- Parka kills him. Drops trash cans on him and shit. Then he cuts a promo in Mexican. lafuckingparka. -Funk v Dusty v Corino is cool, and it leads to the Corino/CW Anderson/Simon Diamond Extreme Horsemen formation. I fucking loathe the team of Diamond and CW, but this made up Terry Funk's feud of MLW (at least from what I've seen). -World Title match is Kojima beating Vampiro. It has Vampiro in it. So yeah, not worth much.

Who's your best worker/'most outstanding' so far, Loss?

As a REALLY young kid (still young, but younger) I thought this was the greatest match I'd ever seen. Even when it fell out of favour of that I thought it was the best WWE match ever. I haven't seen it in YEARS, but it's cool to see someone say it's Bret Hart's best match. It'll be interesting to me where this lands on your top 100 of the year (assuming you're still doing that). Pretty eager for a re-watch myself.

I went through a ton of WCW earlier this year and thought I saw every Steamboat/Austin, but I didn't know this one existed. BATB and Clash in 94 are awesome matches. How does this compare with those (and while I'm at it, the 92 Clash one)?

My uncle thought the Joey Mercury face-explosion was fake. He probably thought it was a planned thing to have his face like that, but I can't understand how he'd think Joey's face could get made-up like that within seconds of being hit with the ladder. Some people just will not believe that wrestlers go through a lot of psyhical pain and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I hate how they act as if they know about it, too, when they're totally ignorant to it. Like 'yeah but THA'S AL'FAKE Y'KNOW." It really sucks.

I would have much preferred Cena lose to actually, well, keep him interesting. He lost to the Rock and it was a big loss, he lost to Bernard and it was an upset, if he lost to Lesnar and took time off, there could have been a really great 'does this guy have it anymore?' story with him. Could build up to another match with Dwayne at, like, SummerSlam or something which he could win. Plus Lesnar could be ridiculously cocky and run around boasting 'haha I beat ya top guy, cunts.'

Man I agree with this completely. Jericho's promos are cringeworthy. "YOU'RE ON THE PATH TO ACOHOLISM" "LIKE YA FATHER; YA FATHER'S A DRUNK" "YOU DRUNK, NOW!? ARE YA!?". I can't believe anybody can tolerate that trash let alone praise it. Orton/Kane is being built better. And is still a pile of nothing.

Christian had a good heel run for however long, but ever since his turn last year his momentum has been completely killed. Between 2009 and 2010 it looks pretty clear he's meant to work babyface veteran for the rest of his life (or y'know...wrestling career).

I often find it odd that a kick to the head can't finsh a guy, but if the boot comes off and is used as a weapon it has the power of a cinder block.